I´m spending Semana Santa in another Granada which is nicknamed ´´La Gran Sultana"after our own Granada in Spain.Founded by Fransisco Cordoba in 1524 it has a long and illustrious history but unfortunatelyin the nineteenth century rich families from it´s rival town,Leon, paid an Americn filibuster,William Walker, to destroy it and he burned it to the ground. He put up a notice,saying "Here was Granada."Nice man! Consequently, there are very few original buildings which gives it a different feel to otherhistoric towns I have visited on this trip.What marks it out is it´s situation-only 10 minutes walk from the shores of Lake Nicaragua, the biggestlake in Central America

. It takes 14 hours by boat from here to the other end which then connects to theRio San Juan and the Caribbean. British and French pirates used this route to sack Granada several timestaking millions of pounds of loot bck to Jamaica.The lake has 350 little islands-Las Isletas- and the super rich of Nicaragua and abroad have built fabulous homeson some of them. I took a boat trip out on the lake the other day and there were a few signs with Islands for sale!!On some of the islands monkeys have settled tho how they ended up there I´m not sure- maybe from shipwrecks.The Malecon-lakeside front -at Granada is pretty with a proper sandy beach and a park full of mango trees behind. Locals go there to swim and enjoy the restaurants.Yesterday I took a trip to Laguna de Apoyo, another smaller lake inside the crater of an extinct volcano-fabulous views and I enjoyed eating breakfast on the deck of a restaurant overhanging the lake and doing a little sun bathing.Semana Santa feels quite low key here compared with Spain. I have seen a couple of small processions and the children were carrying crosses made of maize leafs on Palm Sunday.Well I can hardly believe I am coming up to the final week of the trip which I´ll spend in Costa Rica- the days are just flying by now!